The Mothership arrives from O.N.E. MILE, Detroit’s collaborative North End cultural project, alongside a group of musicians curated by Detroit Afrikan Music Institution, promoting new modalities of contemporary music by African descendants in the 21st Century. The mobile Mothership is a nomadic urban icon designed to transmit a diasporic African cultural narrative by Anya Sirota + AKOAKI.

“Decked out in polished gold vinyl and dichroic film on the outside, Akoaki applied car customization techniques to create the structure’s eye-catching polygonic shell, as if it were a nod to the Mothership’s home turf in Motor City and to North End’s cultural legacy. Colorful lighting adds the finishing touch of psychedelic oomph, while billowing smoke effects make the structure appear as if it just successfully landed at another jammin’ function to get the party started.” – Justine Testado, Archinect

Laugh, Clown, Laugh by Little Bang Theory

Opening: Bill Brovold

Detroit’s Frank Pahl and his “toy” music trio Little Bang Theory perform a live-score accompaniment to the 1928 MGM film Laugh, Clown, Laugh, featuring star of early cinema Lon Chaney, using children’s toys like brightly colored hand bells, crank-operated music boxes, toy pianos, and xylophones. Little Bang Theory is the brainchild of Detroit composer/sonic artist, Frank Pahl, performing with members Terri Sarris and Doug Shimmin. Little Bang Theory have performed at the Detroit Film Theater, Toledo Museum of Art, Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, Theatre Gigante Studios in Milwaukee, The Carnegie Theatre in Covington, KY, and Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, among other places.

Bill Brovold is leader and composer of the Detroit-based experimental large band Larval as well as a solo musician and collaborator with many musicians from Rhys Chatham to Ron Ashton.

“A heart-broken clown and a romantically smitten count meet and join forces to help each other until they discover that they are in love with the same woman…Traditionally, silent movies were given live accompaniment by the resident pianist or theater organist of the theatrical venue. What if he replaced the organist with his own trio? The result is an entertaining evening of captivating joyful cacophony.” – Wayne F. Anthony, Toledo Blade

Clear Cut

Not everything in this world is clear-cut. A kaleidoscope of convictions and affiliations constantly hovers before our eyes, coloring and even obstructing our view of the world. It’s as though our houses have dirty windows, and we’re trying to make sense of what’s going on outside. We only see what our eyes can make out through the dirt and grime on the windowpanes, and we use this incomplete knowledge to interpret everything. What if, however, we cleaned those windowpanes? What if we emphasized the importance of edification instead of our personal allegiances? What if we focused on establishing a healthy community rather than our individual desires? What would the world look like if we allowed our personal convictions and opinions to only enrich our view of the world, instead of blinding us to it?

The Secret Soup

The Secret Soup is a solo immersive interactive projection-mapped performance using a real-time system for improvised audiovisual composition. Referencing audiovisual synthesis techniques, custom digital interfaces control LFO waveforms, looped with a 1:1 audiovisual counterpart. Lines move across the frame while the oscillators are played to create an audiovisual gesture. This gesture is repeated and a new gesture is created forming a call and response using waveforms as the vernacular.

Statics Live

Kero (Sohail Azad) + Annie Hall (Ana Artalejo) are multimedia artists and owners of RVSD Records based in Windsor. They work with artists and record labels to produce custom records and vinyl art projects. Statics is an observational video that records the urban environment of the border cities of Windsor and Detroit through the lens of the various public (and pirate) art projects and interventions that pepper the sidewalks, alleyways and empty parking lots, highlighting their potential for positive transformation into active social spaces by employing non-traditional modes of development.

Frank Pahl & Tim Holmes

Frank Pahl and Tim Holmes collaborate on a sound performance featuring three new instruments exploiting clock chime rods and other nail violin type instruments. Pahl’s instruments include boxes in chromatic and major/minor scale, as well as ones containing a two-dozen chime rod blocks tuned to various chords. The tuning is created using bolt cutters and grinders. The result is ethereal and chordal sounds that contrast with a hammer chime played by Holmes that is capable of striking individual notes.

﻿In the Weeds

In The Weeds is a landscape installation by Missy Ablin + Allen Gillers and public conversation on the grounds of Spencer’s Art House. Through playful use of form, color and optical patterning, the installation offers the potential to look anew at the whimsy and beauty that grows admits the weeds. In The Weeds hosts a panel discussion between academics, designers, and representatives from local government, law enforcement, and community organizations for a public conversation about community oriented art and design practices, and the publics these practices engage.

2013 Performances

Friday May 3

Flint-based steel drum band The Steelheads play Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” to kick off the festival, followed by brief remarks by Congressman Dan Kildee, Mayor Dayne Walling, and Flint Public Art Project director Stephen Zacks.

6:30 – 7pm The Steelheads

The Steelheads are a dynamic and innovative steel band from Mott Middle College High School and Mott Community College in Flint. Founded by James Coviak, the group has performed hundreds of times throughout the community of greater Flint and has been recognized for excellence in dozens of national and international competitions and jazz festivals across North America and Europe.

8:30 – 9pm Destroyed Monster

The story of a monster’s ghost, loosely based on Japanese Noh theater, with costumes and body-puppets made almost exclusively of old automotive parts.

9:30 – 10pm Second Sight

A performance combining dance and architecture, built space and moving bodies. Audience members sit among a set of mirrored panels, which reflect images of the dancers but never allow a fully direct view.

10:30 – 11pm Destroyed Monster

At 605 Stone Street

7:30 – 8pm The Rube Goldberg Variations

Frank Pahl and Tim Holmes perform on homemade instruments made using antique sewing machines, propane tanks, and pots and pans. After the show, the audience is invited to play the instruments themselves.

9 – 10pm The 7-Person Chair Pyramid High Wire Act

Baltimore-based Der Vorführeffekt Theatre presents a play about Charles Darwin, the Yeti, the miraculousness (or not) of flying mammals, and rope-making methods of ancient Siberia.

Saturday May 4

Free City Mainstage

2 – 2:30pm Space Band Detroit

Disparate soul musicnoisefun by disparate souls, for the same

4 – 4:45pm Flint City Wide Choir

A multi-denominational choir with members from more than 50 churches around Flint performs “Amazing Grace” and other selections

5 – 5:30pm Spoken-Word Showcase

Flint-based artist Natasha Thomas-Jackson reads a selection of her poems.

5:30 – 6pm Hardcore Detroit

Haleem Rasul’s Detroit-based hip-hop dance company uses the design elements of line contrast, shape, pattern, and juxtaposition to create their performances.

8:30 – 9pm Destroyed Monster

The Institute for Aesthetic Modulation presents the story of a monster’s ghost, loosely based on Japanese Noh theater, with costumes and body-puppets made almost exclusively of old automotive parts.

9 – 9:30pm Tunde Olanarian

Strains of modern Motown meet Euro-electronica with a heart of Nigerian funk, pure pop melodies and fluid 4-octave range vocals, delivered with a glam-rock sensibility

10 – 10:30pm Destroyed Monster

10:30 – 11pm Second Sight

At other locations on-site

3 – 11pm After the Closer

Detroit-based performance group The Hinterlands hunt for the ghosts of classic Vaudeville in a one-day micro-performance tour through one the monuments to the industrial age, tracing the disappearance of this once-great American performance form through the technologies that replaced it.

4 – 6pm What is the Word?

Flint-based artist Rebekah Mikkelson offers a mobile puppet theatre performance that draws attention to literacy in Flint. The puppet show is based upon a Samuel Beckett poem which details the struggle toward self-expression through language.

At 605 Stone Street

3 – 5pm 24 Things About Me

Personal video portraits showing everyday life scenes of Northwestern High School students, in partnership with students at University of Michigan

Sunday May 5

Free City MainStage

2 – 2:30pm; 3 – 3:30pm Second Sight

A peformance combining dance and architecture, built space and moving bodies. Audience members sit among a set of mirrored panels which reflect images of the dancers, but never allow a fully direct view.

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5 – 6pm Voiceless Opera

Flint-based performance group Fischer Bodies plunges into a conceptual history of Flint, touching on a five key eras: Forest vs Industry, Carriage Town into Vehicle City, Labor Laws and Effort, Emergency vs Revision, and the Future.

7 – 7:30pm Endless Drummers

The closing event of Free City will feature dozens of the region’s best drummers in a massive collaborative performance, organized by Melissa Mays of Indi-Grace Promotions, with help from Torrey Dailey of Until Solace and The Rockstars Academy.

At Other On-Site Locations

1 – 3 pm What is the Word?

2013 Installations

24 Things About Me

Northwestern High School students, working with Hubert Roberts of Black Men for Social Change and University of Michigan Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design students, produce personal videos portraits showing 24 everyday life scenes through the eyes of high school students in Flint. The project is part of a semester-long videomaking workshop led by Roland Graf and Peter Leix, and made possible by Mary Stewart, James Andrews, Joel Rash, and Kasie White.

Art Flag Bunting

Artist Deidre Robb creates a large-scale installation celebrating the Flint region and the social history of the Chevy site.

Autonomy

Environmental artist, activist, and engineer Josh Kogan creates an educational installation of mushroom production that showcases ethical and sustainable food, and supports future community resiliency to both economic and environmental stress factors.

Banner Action

Nsumi Collective presents Banner Action, a mass-scale banner-making event. Participants gather to create unexpected, expressive, colorful, and thought-provoking handmade banners for use during the festival, and at performances, celebrations, marches, neighborhood events, and public spaces throughout Flint.

Car Karaoke

Artist Sarah Keeling offers the public a chance to sing karaoke in two parked cars on the Chevy site. The piece makes the private space of the vehicle public, and creating a new, playful relationship between cars and the site.

Chevy Plants

Architect Freeman Greer marks the site with reused tires arranged in the form of a Chevrolet logo, planted with switchgrass and sunflowers that clean up soil.

Cloud

Architect Jae Kim produces a floating installation that creates a complex geometric form using everyday materials, including nylon wire and hundreds of plastic straws.

Cloudbean

Artist Michael Flynn presents an inflatable shelter made entirely from aluminized mylar plastic. The interior can be used for storytelling, video projections, theater, dance parties, or as a lounging area.

Firefly

This conceptual prototype by artist GeoSpace is a human-powered, all-weather, self-illuminated vehicle that replaces our current models of power, dominance, and energy dependency.

Groundscape

This light installation by architect and artist Catie Newell and students from University of Michigan integrates bio-plastics and a cloth substrate that pulses and fades in response its environment. Groundscape traces the remnants of the railroad tracks, playfully responding to the myriad textures and embedded traces of previous activity throughout the site.

Happen:Stance

Designers Joe Reinsel and Benjamin Gaydos create objects that, depending on where the viewer stands, appear as abstract shapes or readable text drawn from conversations with local residents. Where the text is visible, a QR code leads viewers to a recording of the conversation.

Postcard Futures

In 1968 photographer Jet Lowe shot “Delphi Flint West, 300 Chevrolet Avenue” in Flint, as part of his work to record significant, often threatened American industrial sites. Architects Natalia Roumelioti and Matthias Neumann invite the public to attempt to identify and reenact the photographer’s vantage point and to share their own photograph of that view to a dedicated Flickr account.

Prop 13

The curatorial collective Public Opinion brings Flint together with five other cities worldwide – including Chicago, New York, London and Bucharest, Romania – to share selections of video and sound art that will be broadcast live in each city during the festival.

Recovering History

Photographer Farrah Karapetian reimagines abandoned billboards as a sculptural structure to house images made with students at the federal vocational training program Flint/Genesee Job Corps performing their trades. The work honors both the efforts these youth are making to improve their lives as well as the rebuilding of Flint.

Righting Itself

Artists Yvette Cummings and Jim Arendt use moss and other elements found on site to produce this installation on the concrete wall along the north boundary. The piece will grow over time, facilitating the site’s transformation into the living heart of Flint.

Rising Into Ruin

Artist Jason Mitcham projects a series of his animations created using a stop-motion technique of documenting slight alterations on paintings. His films deal with temporality, modern ruins, and entropy in the landscape.

Scarecrows

Artist Matt Osmon and his students at Mott Middle College High School install a series of scarecrows representing the past, present, and future of the Chevy site.

Spinning Circle / Shooting Cloud

Combining minimalist esthetics with new media, Buddhist mandelas and popular holiday decoration, New York-based artist Raphaele Shirley’s large-scale light installation pulsates from its center outwards with colors and a rising mist which will claim a section of the site as a genesis of mystery.

This Progress, Stolen from the Guggenheim

In artist Tino Sehgal’s piece This Progress, developed for the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, volunteer “interpreters” engage visitors in a series of walking conversations about the meaning of progress. Through a playful Robin Hood-like heist from the museum, This Progress will be produced at Free City. The project gains a new layer of meaning in Flint, raising the question of what progress is or could be from the perspective of a city familiar with crisis.

We Build Excitement

A temporary monument to GM’s discontinued Pontiac Motor Division, produced by artist Jesse Sugarmann. For the Free City Festival, the project takes the form of an ersatz Pontiac dealership at which sculptural and dance performances occur.

2013 Workshops

Lois Sharp-Schneider of Flint’s Yoga Loft Studio offers free classes themed around the site’s manufacturing history, including poses that resemble planks, planes, levels, wrenches, and other building tools. Each participant will take home a tool pocket with visual reminders of the poses.

Sat. May 4 12pm, 1pm, 2pm: Chevy-in-the-Hole Site Tour

Flint is setting a national example for dealing with abandoned industrial sites as resources. Join Joel Parker, chief engineer on the team leading the City’s reclamation efforts at Chevy-in-the-Hole, for a 45-minute site tour. Learn about the many initiatives underway, including planting hundreds of trees and producing compost to clean and enrich the soil.

Sat., May 4 1pm For the Birds

Join an urban birding tour with Kettering University Director of External Relations Jack Stock, and learn about the dozens of different birds found throughout Flint and the Chevy site. No experience necessary! Bring field glasses and a bird book if you have them.

Sat., May 4 1pm, 3pm, 5pm: Free City Bicycle Tour

Angela Stamps, founder of Berston Bicycle Club Project, leads 45-minute bike tours of the Chevy-in-the-Hole site and surrounding neighborhoods. Up to 8 bikes and helmets provided, or bring your own bike if you prefer.

Sat., May 4 and Sun., May 5, 1-5pm: Do-It-Yourself Theater Workshop

Baltimore’s Der Vorführeffekt Theatre offers a collaborative creation and theater-making workshop, culminating in performance of short pieces developed by participants (ages 12 and up)

Sat., May 4: 1 – 5pm Studio on the GO

Flint-based musician and producer PharlonRandle leads a hands-on workshop that builds skills in songwriting, music composition, and studio production, as participants produce their own song.

Sun., May 5, 4pm: CreekCritters

The Flint River Watershed Coalition shows you all the amazing things living in your local creek or river. From dragon fly larvae to crawdads, these amazing creatures tell us how healthy our rivers and streams really are. Find the critters that live in your local creek and create a hand-painted brick of your favorite Creek Critter.

2013 Events

Saturday, April 27

4pm Happy Valley: Flint Male Chorus and Flint City Wide Choir

Bronx-based artist Laura Napier brings together two Flint choral groups to the Chevy site to sing “Amazing Grace” and other selections in their first-ever joint performance: Flint Male Chorus is directly descended from the company era Chevrolet-Flint Male Chorus of the Chevrolet Manufacturing Division, while Flint City Wide Choir is an interdenominational group from more than 40 churches across Flint. Juxtaposing musical styles from very different traditions, this performance will recognize and celebrate the different lives and cultures connected to the site, and will create common ground for past to meet future.

5 – 6pm Chevy Futures Visioning Workshop

What do you think Chevy-in-the-Hole should become? Join planner James Rojas for a hands-on, interactive workshop to explore the Chevy site and build a small three-dimensional model representing your ideas and visions for its future. Open to all ages.

7:30 pm The Rube Goldberg Variations

Musicians Frank Pahl and Tim Holmes perform on homemade instruments made using antique sewing machines, propane tanks, pots and pans, and other unusual materials. After the show, the audience is invited to play the instruments themselves.

Friday, April 19

6pm Celebration Red

Artist Alison Knowles, a founding member of the Fluxus art movement, organizes a ceremonial happening at the Chevy site. Participants are invited to bring food and a red object to be placed on a large red fabric. Following the performance, Flint Public Art Project Executive Director Stephen Zacks will conduct a public interview of the artist, open to the general public.